1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to telephony devices and specifically to control by a computer system of telephony devices.
2. Related Art
Telephony devices are generally devices that are capable of transmitting and/or receiving information to/from a telephone network, e.g., via telephone lines to/from a telephone service provider and/or phone lines owned by a telephone service provider. Telephony devices such as modems, speakerphones, facsimile machines, and answering machines have grown enormously in popularity in recent decades. Concurrently, business and home computer systems, such as PC's, have also enjoyed a surge of popularity. Along with the growing popularity of PC-type computer systems has come a movement to control various appliances, including telephony devices, with PC-type devices. To implement such computer control, devices are usually controlled by digital signals (i.e., signals which transmit information in binary codes implemented with high and low voltages) from the computer system and require interface circuitry as well as certain network protocol support circuitry to be in place. Such interface and protocol support circuitry can take up considerable space in a telephony device and significantly raise its costs.
The close relationship of some telephony devices, such as modems, to computer systems has allowed their successful control by computer systems, including PC-type systems. Modems are, however, generally controlled by digital signals from the computer system. Other types of telephony devices, particularly speakerphones and other voice transmitting/receiving devices, have not experienced the same successful control by computer systems as modems. Despite occasional attempts to incorporate voice transmitting and receiving telephony devices such as speakerphones into PCs, the result is often poor performance defined by a low signal-to-noise ratio. Thus, it is desirable to develop a system where a voice transmitting and receiving telephony device can be controlled from a computer system without performance loss. Moreover, because many telephony devices tend to be relatively inexpensive, it is desirable to develop such a system so that the ultimate consumer sees little increase in cost.